Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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686. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if he will provide an update on the interdepartmental group which is working on future investment in early years and school-age care and education services; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30655/15]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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My Department currently provides approximately €260 million annually to early years and school-age care and education services. This funding is largely directed towards a number of childcare programmes, which aim to improve the accessibility, affordability and quality of early years and school-age care and education. These programmes support the provision of early years and school-age care and education for more than 100,000 children each year.

To ensure that all the benefits of this (and future) investment are fully realised, it must be evidence-based and strategically coordinated. It is critically important that any investment is designed to achieve the best outcomes for children and their parents. Accordingly, earlier this year, I established an Inter-Departmental Group to set out a range of options for future investment, including options to enhance affordability, options to increase the accessibility of provision and options to build the quality of provision of early years and school age care and education. Membership of the Group included representation from right across Government, including the Departments of Education and Skills, Jobs and Innovation, Justice and Equality, Social Protection and as well as the Departments of Public Expenditure and Reform, Finance and an Taoiseach.

The work of the Group was informed by research and evidence of best practice and by existing policy commitments, including those set out in Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures, the National Policy Framework for Children and Young People. To inform its work, the Group also solicited the views of key stakeholders, interested parties and the general public through a number of consultative processes, including two separate online consultation processes - one with the early years sector and one with parents and guardians, and an Open Policy Debate, which was hosted by my Department on 31 March 2015 and attended by some 40 invited representatives including parents, providers, academics, childcare committees, and NGOs. It has also held a series of bilateral discussions with relevant Government Departments, including the Departments of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Education and Skills, Finance, Jobs and Innovation, Justice and Equality, Public Expenditure and Reform and Social Protection.

I published the report of the Inter-Departmental Group on 22 July to facilitate a further debate within the sector and among parents generally about the value of and priority that should be attached to the various options for future investment, which were set out in the report. I will have specific proposals to make in the context of the Estimates process for Budget 2016.